11 ms·

If we don't understand it's workings, how do we know it's not magic ;)

• jimmaswell 5y ago
  I remember an episode of Cosmos mentioned how we used to have gods for every little thing like rivers and trees, then as they were unserstood the remaining gods grew fewer and more abstract.
  • robbedpeter 5y ago
    The "god of the gap" phenomena - every new discovery and scientific paradigm removes another aspect of reality god was thought responsible for.
  • dragonwriter 5y ago
    > I remember an episode of Cosmos mentioned how we used to have gods for every little thing like rivers and trees, then as they were unserstood the remaining gods grew fewer and more abstract. That's a very convenient, attractive model, but not really even remotely accurate as a description of the evolution of religious belief. What actually happened in a lot of the world is that people who called the “gods of every little thing” something else (“guardian angels”, “patron saints”) imposed their religious language on other people by force (or just exterminated them outright).
• dekhn 5y ago
  we don't know for sure and could never say for certain, but it seems like the most reasonable approach right now.
• intrasight 5y ago
  I will posit that there is intelligent life somewhere in this vast universe that does understand the brain (being so vast, there are places with similar brains), and therefore for some civilization, it's not magic ;)